Golden Globe hopes for Winslet and Mendes

Double delight ... Kate Winslet, seen here in Revolutionary Road, was nominated for acting honours in the Sam Mendes film as well as Stephen Daldry's The Reader

Working with one's spouse can so often be a shortcut to acrimony, but not for Kate Winslet and her husband, Sam Mendes. Yesterday, their first joint project, Revolutionary Road - directed by him and starring her - received a slew of nominations at the Golden Globes, honoured alongside an unusually large array of British talent.

If all goes well on January 11, he could win best director, it could win best film, she could scoop best actress and her co-star, Leonardo DiCaprio, could take best actor.

Winslet has another chance to win the Golden Globe that has eluded her on five occasions: she is also nominated for best supporting actress for The Reader, in which she plays a former Nazi concentration camp guard who has an affair with a teenage boy.

The Winslet-Mendeses are not the only couple up for awards. Brad Pitt is nominated for best actor for his role as the eponymous hero in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, who is born aged 80 and grows younger by the day, and his partner, Angelina Jolie, has a chance at best actress for The Changeling.

In the coveted best drama category, Revolutionary Road is competing against Stephen Daldry's The Reader and another British-directed film, Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire. But the big competition looks to come from Frost/Nixon and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which both won five nominations. Doubt, which stars Meryl Streep as a nun who confronts a priest she suspects of abusing a black student, is also competing in five categories.

British talent was nominated in at least 20 of the 25 categories.

British actress Kristin Scott Thomas was nominated in the best dramatic actress category for her role in the French film I've Loved You So Long. It is her first Golden Globe nomination since 1997, when she was up for best actress for her performance in The English Patient.

Other British women in contention include Emma Thompson for Last Chance Harvey, Sally Hawkins for Happy-Go-Lucky and Rebecca Hall for Vicky Cristina Barcelona. The last two are up for best comedy or musical, alongside Burn After Reading, Happy-Go-Lucky, In Bruges and Mamma Mia!

Ralph Fiennes has been given a best TV actor nod for Bernard and Doris, an HBO film in which he stars alongside Susan Sarandon. He is also a contender in the best supporting actor category for The Duchess, against the late Heath Ledger, who is favourite to win for his role as the Joker in the Batman film The Dark Knight.

Frost/Nixon is a big-screen version of Peter Morgan's West End hit, which recreates the 1977 standoff between presenter David Frost and the disgraced former president Richard Nixon. Morgan has been nominated for best screenplay, pitting him against fellow Britons Simon Beaufoy for Slumdog Millionaire and David Hare for The Reader.

The Globes are typically seen as a crucial pointer towards the Academy Awards that follow in February, though they are not foolproof.

Last year's best drama award went to Atonement, while Sweeney Todd was named best comedy or musical. A month later, the best film Oscar went to No Country for Old Men. Sweeney Todd failed to even secure a nomination.